


Erasure

by AbraxanUnicorn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 22:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10706460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbraxanUnicorn/pseuds/AbraxanUnicorn
Summary: Some things, once lost, are gone foreverWritten for Winding Arrow's Amnesia Challenge





	Erasure

_“For the love of all things holy. Holey, geddit?”_

Suddenly jolted out of a deep slumber by a faint, dryly amused voice inside his head, a young man sits bolt upright in his bed, his heart beating a tattoo against his ribcage. His face is beaded with perspiration, and strands of hair are clinging to his forehead. He takes in a deep, trembly breath and releases it gently, reluctantly opening his eyes as though he is worried about what he might see. As it turns out, not much to begin with. His lids, gummed with sleep, blur his vision to the extent that everything around him is shapeless, and a mauve-y shade of grey. He rubs his knuckles across both eyes and waits for the discomfort to abate before trying out his eyesight again.

The man knows it’s morning, because pale sunlight is filtering through the thin curtains and highlighting the dust motes above his sheets. He’s sure it was night when he went to bed. In fact, he knows it was, because when he tried to locate his bed in the half-blindness of the dark, his leg smacked against something hard, and it was painful for a moment. Yet, in some peculiar way, the hurt seems pathetically trivial. It’s as though he’s missing some greater agony within himself, to which nothing else can compare. He tries to comprehend the vague sensation, but cannot, and dismisses it as yet another thing to add to his growing collection of recent inexplicable occurrences.  
Reaching down with his hand, he prods the area above his knee, noting the presence of a small, tender bump, confirming a recent interaction between something solid and his leg. He’s positive it wasn’t there this time yesterday.

The man huffs a small sigh of relief, and inwardly congratulates himself. He has remembered that there was a yesterday. He can also remember that yesterday was Tuesday, and the day before that was Monday. This is progress, he tells himself. This is good. Outstanding, even.

For the third morning in a row, the man concentrates really, really hard, his face scrunched tight in an effort to recall anything that happened before Monday. The smallest event would do. Yet, once again, he draws a blank. It’s as though someone has drained the swamp inside his head and left nothing but a fragment of pond-weed as a token remnant. 

Swamp. That word feels familiar. Oddly, it makes him want to guffaw in triumph, but he has no idea why.

The man can’t help but relive the nightmare he experienced two days ago on Monday morning, when he’d woken up all alone in this strange house, not knowing where he was or even who he was. He had almost wet himself with terror as he had stumbled frantically from the bed, plunging to the floor in a tangled toga of white bed-sheets. Like a stricken animal, he had crawled on all fours along the dark carpet, his bedclothes trailing behind him like a leaden veil as he bumped and bashed his way around the unfamiliar space. Only when the roughness of wool weave beneath his palms had given way to cool ceramic tiles, did he shed his hangings. 

He lay on the unrecognisable white floor and hyperventilated, whilst sweat crept steadily out of every one of his pores, dousing him to a clammy mess. Eventually, cold, sticky and shivery, he had hoisted himself up off the ground. Leaning heavily against a white porcelain bathroom sink and catching sight of a reflection in the mirror above, he had begun to sob with a great, gulping, wet-fish noise.

The tearful, gaunt face of a stranger had stared back at him from the mirror, his brown eyes wide with anxiety. As the man reached up with moistened fingertips to lightly trace the swarm of freckles dotted over the reflected nose, the image copied, seeming to softly mock him in its action. He moved his hand to his own head of hair and plucked out a coarse strand, examining it closely, in an attempt to determine whether the person in the mirror was really him. Golden red-orange, like the hue of sunsets and marmalade. Something about the colour struck him as significant, but he just couldn’t fathom out the reason why. He turned the hair shaft this way and that, before flicking it onto the floor and studying his reflection again. 

There was a strange asymmetry that he hadn’t noticed at first, and it took him a moment to realise what was causing it. As his fingers probed a grotesque cavity on the left side of his head, sudden disgust overwhelmed him. His ear was missing! How, in the name of Merlin, had he managed to lose an ear? For a dizzying moment, the thought of that gaping hole into his head made him feel violently sick. He had grasped the basin and taken a few shuddering breaths before splashing his face frantically with cold water. 

Eventually, the nausea had subsided.

Out of his bed-sheets and naked, the man forced himself to step away from the bathroom sink. On hesitant feet, he wandered a maze of rooms and corridors, weaving almost drunkenly as he stared around for anything that he might recognise. It took him just a few minutes to be absolutely certain that he had never seen this house before, and, what’s more, there seemed to be a dearth of information on its usual inhabitants. The light-coloured walls were absent of any decorations, there were no books or ornaments in sight, and everything about the place appeared completely devoid of personality. However, the faint presence of unbleached rectangles here and there on the walls seemed to suggest that a previous occupant may once have had pictures on display.

He wondered whose place it was, and what he was doing there. Who, in Merlin’s name, could have transported him here and stolen his memories, and why would they want to do so? 

It wasn’t until he had stumbled into a living room, chaotically strewn with wine bottles and assorted flasks, that a vague explanation had been discovered. Gazing in confusion at the mess, his glance had fallen upon a piece of ochre parchment upon a wooden table. Somehow, he had known that the document was intended for him, and he read it, his eyes growing wide in astonishment as he learned of his first name. He then skimmed the bulk of the letter – which included some badly-written twaddle about starting again – before lingering over the final paragraph. This last section had begun with the startling information that the property he was in now belonged to him, and had finished with a strangely sinister warning not to seek out the past.

None of it made any sense. What sort of abductor kidnaps someone, steals their memories and then leaves them a house?

That had been two days ago. 

Today, he is still none the wiser. Stretching his arms above his head and yawning, he climbs out of bed whilst silently reciting Monday and Tuesday’s happenings, as though he is frightened that if he doesn’t, the memories will also vanish without explanation. He’s lost his whole life and he definitely doesn’t want to forget the only bit he can remember, as mundane as it is. He tries his name out again. He’s becoming slightly more used to it each day.

“I’m George,” he announces to the room, feeling slightly foolish at how novel his voice sounds to his own auditory system. Something still bothers him about his name, though. It almost seems incomplete, like it is missing a hugely significant part, but that’s just ridiculous and he knows it. There is nothing that hyphenates well with George, nor is the name particularly extendible – or should it be ‘extendable’? Why does that word bring to mind forbidden secrets and pungent spherical objects?

“Don’t be stupid,” he declares loudly to himself. “That parchment stated your name as ‘George’. If you were ‘George-Geoffrey’ or ‘John-George’ or even, Merlin forbid, ‘George-Grow-Your-Own-Warts’, surely it would have told you so?” 

Even as he lectures himself, a part of his mind is answering back. There’s no mention of a surname, for starters. Maybe he does have another component to his name after all. It must be information that his kidnapper doesn’t wish to reveal. 

George scratches his head in frustration.

Padding quietly across the carpet and into the bathroom, he heads straight for the mirror, panicking slightly in case he has suddenly transformed into yet another person he doesn’t recognise, just as he’s getting used to being George. To his relief, the same reflection of the past two days gazes solemnly back at him. Reddish, overgrown hair, a plague of tan freckles, brown eyes, and no left ear. He’s still the George he was yesterday, and he exhales gustily before turning towards the toilet. As he lifts up the seat, he is assaulted by a sudden, strange urge to send it to his sister.

His _sister?_

He racks his brains for any information on family, and unsurprisingly, discovers that there is none. If he ever had a family, they have been extinguished from his mind along with practically everything else. 

Does he have a sister? 

What could she possibly want with this toilet seat? 

Like everything else of the past few days, there is little sense to be made from this fleeting thought, although he begins to wonder whether this is a sign that the letter is wrong, and he does have relations somewhere. A sibling who designs bathrooms for a living, maybe? 

Scrunching his brows in irritation at not knowing, he wonders whether it might be an idea to venture outside for a short time. Perhaps being cooped up in this single-storey house for two days hasn’t helped, and the fresh air might do him good. He imagines how good the warm sun feels against his skin as he saunters leisurely between apple trees, occasionally stopping to throw large potatoes over a fence by their legs.

Wait. Since when did potatoes have legs? 

“Don’t be ridiculous, George,” he scolds himself through gritted teeth, wondering if this is how insanity begins. He’s determined not to let it win, if so. As he ponders that thought, he has the coldest, emptiest feeling that he once fought hard against something before, and lost.

He takes a pee, flushes the toilet, and leaves the seat up so it cannot bother him again. Returning to the sink, he washes his hands and brushes his teeth. He looks across at his mirror image and nods at it, before testing out a half-hearted grin and a wink. 

“Forge,” he says assuredly to himself, before furrowing his eyebrows in puzzlement. “Forge?” George whispers, incredulously. “I mean George, of course. Of course I do.” 

He frowns at his reflection as he chalks up the slip of his tongue to an accidental muddling. Anyone can get their letters mixed up, after all, not just people who can only remember the last forty-eight hours of their life. This little error does NOT mean he is insane. 

Merlin, this is a predicament, and no mistake. Whoever his mysterious memory-stealing abductor is, they had better watch their back, thinks George grimly. He is going to have a few things to say to them when he catches them, that’s for sure.

Ignoring the jittery sensation in the pit of his stomach, George exits the bathroom and heads towards his bedroom.

Yesterday, he discovered that his abductor – who, surprisingly, seemed to have known his exact clothing size when he himself didn’t – had thoughtfully supplied him with a fully-stocked wardrobe of garments, prior to kidnapping him. “Such benevolence,” George mutters sarcastically to the wardrobe, “but I think I would have preferred it if they’d just left me alone.”

Rummaging through the vast array of clothes in the oversized cupboard, George promptly selects a red t-shirt and some jeans. He throws the chosen items onto his unmade bed before resuming his search, this time for a belt.

His hand brushes against something leather, but it’s too broad to be a belt. Curiously, he extracts the piece of clothing and holds it up in front of him, feeling inexplicably sad as he does so.

It’s a jacket, made of the most butter-soft dragon-hide imaginable, in the most lurid, eye-watering shade of green. George cannot help wrinkle his nose at the distasteful colour, yet there’s an aura of tragedy surrounding the coat, something that he can’t put his finger on. A feeling of deep loss overwhelms him, and he slides the jacket hastily back into the wardrobe in an effort to quell the sensation. 

It’s almost as though the coat has some depressing story to tell him. Perhaps this is a clue to his past. Was he once a Seer who could pick up feelings from inanimate objects? His interest is piqued despite his despair, though he cannot for the life of him imagine why the kidnapper would have chosen that particular item of clothing for him. He’s quite sure he’s not a fan of green – especially if silver is involved – although he is unable to explain how he knows that, or why it should be the case.

George carries on browsing the wardrobe, encountering the jacket again, much to his annoyance, as he’s convinced that he’d stuffed it elsewhere along the rail. Is this one of those irritating, up-itself smart-wardrobes, which shuffles clothing around and dictates what the owner should wear on a daily basis, he wonders? Frowning, George glares at the piece of furniture threateningly. He is briefly considering a plan to demolish the whole thing and erect a smaller, less opinionated cupboard in its place, when something brings his rifling and destructive thoughts to a stop.

It’s not a juggling wardrobe at all. The reason he has come across the dragon-skin again, is that there are two of them. Is this some sort of unfunny joke on his abductor’s part, to give him a pair of identical, fluorescent green jackets that he’ll never ever wear? 

The second jacket makes him want to burst out giggling, and he really wishes he knew what the joke was. Either the garment has a fantastic sense of humour, or it must have belonged to a great comedian. He’s surprised to find that he’s actually laughing so hard that his sides and jaw are aching, but then the joyful feeling stops abruptly, to be replaced with melancholy. It’s almost as though every lovely thought has suddenly imploded inside him, and he’ll never be happy again. Most agonisingly of all, he just doesn’t know why he feels this way.

Numbly, he walks over to his bed and sits down at the edge. What atrocity could he possibly have committed in life, to land him in this blank purgatory, and what use is this as a punishment, if he can’t even remember the crime? 

He wants so badly to understand. Maybe there were clues in the letter that he missed when he first read it? After pulling on the t-shirt and jeans, George runs a hand through his flame-coloured hair and wanders through the house, into the living room.

The letter is exactly where he left it on Monday, still lying on top of a low, wooden table with a pheasant quill and pot of ink stationed nearby. George picks up the parchment and reads it again, more carefully this time. The writing is erratic, as though the abductor wrote it under duress.

_This is a letter for the man who wakes up in this house with no memory.  
It can only be seen by you and not by anyone else. Therefore, if you can read it, it’s meant for you._

__

_Firstly - don’t be alarmed._

_Your name is George._

_George, when you wake up on Monday 3rd May 1999, you won’t remember anything significant from your past. This letter only contains information you need to know, and nothing more. It’s the opportunity you need to start a new life for yourself._

_You were born in the 1970s and you are now in your early twenties._  
_Your family are gone._  
_You lost your ear in an accident._  
_VERY IMPORTANT: You are allergic to prawns. Don’t eat any, unless you actually want to die, or have a stop-swell potion to hand._

_I’m sorry if you hate what’s been done, but I had to do it. You needed your memories to be taken away so that you could start a new life, one free from pain and misery. Your memory was erased using an irreversible potion, concocted from a secret recipe which has now been destroyed. It has long been impossible to contact the original creator. The loss of your memory is permanent, which you yourself agreed was for the best._

_Not all your memories were bad. You had some good ones too, but this year had nearly killed you, and you were close to falling. You needed to be saved from yourself, but in order to completely erase the worst memories, the best had to go as well._  
_I’m sorry about that._  
_You’ll make new, happy ones. I promise. It will be easier for you to live without the burden of the past weighing upon your shoulders. It might be a struggle to begin with, but it will get better. You wanted this; really, you did._

_You have money in the bank, plenty of it. It should keep you going for a while. If you sweep the quill feather over the blank space at the bottom of this page, your bank details and other personal data will be revealed. Make a note of the numbers because this letter will vanish at midnight on May 5th and you won’t get it back._

_This is your house, George. Everything in it belongs to you. It’s all fully paid for and I hope you make some good memories here. Put pictures on the walls, and fill it with laughter. Once upon a time, you loved to joke, and I hope you learn to do so again. However, I strongly warn you against seeking the past. There are things buried there that you do not wish to uncover. There was a reason you wished your memories away._

_Move forward with your life, and don’t ever look back. Good luck, George, old friend._

 

There is no signature. 

You coward, thinks George, as he reads the letter again and again, trying to commit it to memory. The more he examines it, the angrier he gets. Who the Hell is this person, who saw fit to call him an “old friend”, who destroyed his past. How dare they intone that he wanted it to happen? If they were that good a friend, they wouldn’t have dealt him this devastating blow. Surely, no amount of pain could drive a friend into abducting someone and wiping their memories? 

Some friend. 

George snorts with fury and disbelief as he picks up the quill and swipes it crossly over the bottom of the letter, intending to check its validity. Just as the letter promised, numbers become visible. Looking around the living room for a spare bit of parchment on which to jot down the details, he spots some on the floor. 

George picks up the blank parchment, and rests it on the table. He dips the quill into the ink and begins to copy the financial information down, the nib scratching angrily across the surface. He checks what he has written against the original and as he does so, he notices something rather odd. The quill drops out of his open fingers and floats gently towards the floor.

There’s something remarkably similar about the writing. The way that his abductor has scribed the numbers is almost the same as how he has inked his.

How strange. Was his abductor a relative, he wonders in puzzlement? Did a member of his family do this to him?

He reaches for the quill again, and dips it back into the ink as he takes the letter and reads it closely. Maybe it’s because he’s stared at the letter several times now, but he swears there’s definitely something familiar about the handwriting. 

George is half-way through writing ‘what a load of twaddle’ across the letter when he pauses, in curiosity. 

The writing isn’t just similar, it’s identical.

Still he doesn’t see, as he carries on with the sentence. 

It’s only when he’s writing the final ‘e’ of twaddle, that it dawns on him who his abductor is.

 

Him.

 

As every fibre of his being wails in agony for the unknown, every awful regret engulfs his mind, and George sinks slowly to the floor, trapped in his own personal Hell.


End file.
